BOER AND BRITON.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 287, 28 November 1908, Page 6

BOER AND BRITON.

THE OTHER SIDE. (By T.F.F.) The very interesting article recounting Mr Thorp's views upon the situation in South Africa, culls for further light upon the subject, which would appear to be one of great interest to nil those who have the welfare of the Empire at heart. The writer has spent the last ten years in that part of the world, the last four in the Transvaal. He knows the Boers as well as any Briton can understand that remarkable race j speaks their tongue ; has had charge of Concentration Camps as well as other Government posts ; and can speak at first hand as to the political situation as recently as four months ago. The impression is widespread, that upon attaining political power eighteen months ago, the Boer government in the Transvaal entered at once upon a campaign of wholesale retrenchment of British officials. When English M's.P. laboured might and main as they did to prove this cause of action as being that resolved upon, it is small food for wonder that throughout the Empire the belief in its truth' gained ground everywhere The fact that Jlr Thorpe belongs to a profession in which engagements are of necessity limited to the duration of a set tusk, at once disposes of the term "retrenchment" as being applicable to his case.

That retrenchment of a wholesale nature has taken place no one who knows the facts will attempt to deny. That Britishers as Britishers and because they are Britishers, and for that reason alone, have been dispensed with, is, however, far from true. The H'et Wlk Government when it came into

power, found a salary list obtaining quite out of all proportion to the finances, tile needs and necessities of the Colony, ililnciisin had played the last card in nepotism ; had created all sorts of superlliious and overlapping posts and offices; had offered remuneration out of all proportion to the market value of work dime or responsibility assumed ; and lastly had lilled a majority of such posts with men who could not earn their salt in their native land. I say here and now, that only incompetent and superfluous civil servants have been retrenched. At meeting after meeting of the "old burghers" of the Transvaal, Botha and Smuts have :been assailed by their supporters for their failure to get rid of all and every Englishman. What lias boe u their reply ? Why, all honour to tlifiu. each has time after time declared that "We are all one people now ;" that "we know neither Boer nor Briton, but only citizens of the Transvaal ;" 'that "to ask us to get rid of men who are doing their duty satisfactorily, because they are British is what we shall never consent to do.'' Such are a few of the replies made by the Premier and Colonial Secretary which linger in one's memory.

Certainly tin- Noel's have ''practically obtained li.v political means what they hail gamely endeavoured to get by force of anus." How can it be otherwise miller free institutions ? It merely resolves itself under what is practically manhood sufferage, to a counting of beads. Do New Zealanders object to manhood suffrage? Do they wish the majority or minority to rule'? Let me tell theiu. that had the Milner regime properly conducted affairs, during the five years in which a nominated Council of puppets, parasites and perjured Dutch, hardly leavened by a minority of. patriots, governed, not the conquered Boers only, but we free born Britons from all quarters of the Empire, too, the Het Volk majority, which stands at.j two to one, would have been no more than three or four in a Mouse of ("!l members. But we Britons got disgusted when we found that a ring of Jewish exploiters, aideil and abetted by a few

English renegades, dominated the ''great pro-Consul,'' whose n od and beck in turn determined the issue of all legislation entrusted to the '•distributions" (save the mark!) of the puppets tami parasites aforesaid, llawera, November '25.